CRIMINALIZED SURVIVAL

being punished for surviving

Our women’s prisons are filled with survivors of violence.

According to the organization Survived and Punished, “the vast majority of people in women’s prisons, and many in men’s prisons, are survivors of domestic, sexual, homophobic and transphobic violence as children and adults. For many survivors, experiences of policing, criminalization, and incarceration are deeply intertwined with gender-based violence.” 

The statistics are startling. 

• 67% of women sent to prison in 2005 for killing someone close to them were abused by the victim of their crime (NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision).

• Nearly 60% of people in women's prisons nation-wide—and as many as 94% of some women's prison populations—have a history of physical or sexual abuse before incarceration (ACLU).

• According to Sanctuary for Families — a New York-based organization that was instrumental in advocating for the DVSJA legislation — 90% of incarcerated women are survivors of gender violence.

• The average prison sentence for men who kill their female partners is 2 to 6 years. The average sentence for women who kill their male partners is 15 years, despite the fact that most women kill their abusive partners in self-defense (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

For those who survived abuse, the criminal justice system serves as the next abusive entity in their lives. Instead of offering protection, compassion, and healing, we have a system that uses the same tactics as an abuser—aggressive character assassinations and coercion; monitoring of movement and phone calls; shackling and invasive strip searches; and creating an environment of punishment and fear. And as we know, many are re-traumatized and victimized by police or prison guards, including verbal abuse and sexual violence.

Criminalization—policing, prosecution, trial, and incarceration— replicates and perpetuates the cycle of abuse. Statistics show this issue disproportionately affects women and girls of color, especially Black women, as well as immigrants, native women, trans women, and gender non-conforming people.

More states are starting to introduce legislation to account for the mitigating realities of domestic violence. Read about how New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) was misapplied in Nikki’s case, and then helped drastically reduce Nikki’s sentence during her appeal: WeStandWithNikki.com/FAQS

Resources

Organizations with fact sheets, organizing resources, research, toolkits, and more:

• Survived and Punished

• S&P’s Defense Campaign Toolkit

• Women & Justice Project

• Sanctuary for Families

• Women’s Prison Association

• Women in Prison Project

• National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women

• Invisible No More

Suggested reading:

• No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder

• Decriminalizing Domestic Violence by Leigh Goodmark

• We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba

• All Our Trials by Emily L. Thuma

• Down Girl by Kate Manne

• The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

• Burning Woman by Lucy H. Pearce

Relevant news:

• No Choice But To Do It — The Appeal

• When Can a Woman Who Kills Her Abuser Claim Self-Defense? — The New Yorker

• When Abuse Victims Commit Crimes — The Atlantic

• Stop Treating Domestic Violence Differently From Other Crimes — The New York Times

• U.N. Report: 50,000 Women A Year Are Killed By Intimate Partners, Family Members — NPR

• Nearly Half of All Murdered Women Are Killed By Romantic Partners — The Atlantic

• Divided States of Incarceration with Liz Plank

• Are Women Punished More Harshly for Killing an Intimate Partner? — The Guardian